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The printing plates for the Penny Black, two pence blue and the VR official were all constructed by Perkins Bacon, the printers of the first postage stamps issued in Great Britain.
The construction of these plates was long and complicated, which was intentional so as to make the forgery of the finished article almost impossible.
The first stage involved the engraving of a background for the design. This was produced with a rose engine which laid down a circular pattern of symmetrical design onto a piece of soft steel. This was then partly cleared to leave a square shape and an area in the centre was further cleared in the shape of Queen Victoria's head ready for engraving.
At this stage the die was passed to the engravers who, working from a sketch provided by Henry Cole, engraved the head in the centre.
Following this the labels were engraved at the top and bottom of the die, along with corner squares to take the stars and check letters. Finally the stars were engraved into the top corners.
At this stage the die was hardened and a series of impressions made on a transfer roller, which—as its name implies—was used to transfer the image from the die to the printing plate. Once these images were complete on the roller, this was in turn hardened.
A sheet of soft steel was cut, sufficient in size to take 240 impressions of the stamps arranged in twenty horizontal rows of twelve. Onto this plate a series of guide dots were marked, some of which were joined with guide lines to allow the correct registration of the impressions. Many of these dots and lines show on the printed stamps and allow them to be correctly assigned to the plate from which they were printed.
Using the transfer roller, the impressions were transferred to the plate under great pressure until the required 240 impressions were completed. Finally the check letters were inserted into the lower corner using hand punches. As such the position of these letters on each stamp differs slightly from one plate to the next and provide an aid for collectors wishing to assign a given stamp impression to its correct plate. Finally the marginal inscriptions were added to the four sides of the sheet using a separate roller and the plate hardened ready for use in production.
The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was first issued in the United Kingdom on 1 May 1840 but was not valid for use until 6 May. The stamp features a profile of Queen Victoria.
Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co was a printer of books, bank notes and postage stamps, most notable for printing the Penny Black, the world's first adhesive postage stamps, in 1840.
The Penny Red was a British postage stamp, issued in 1841. It succeeded the Penny Black and continued as the main type of postage stamp in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until 1879, with only minor changes to the design during that time. The colour was changed from black to red because of difficulty in seeing a cancellation mark on the Penny Black; a black cancellation mark was readily visible on a Penny Red.
Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain surveys postal history from the United Kingdom and the postage stamps issued by that country and its various historical territories until the present day.
The VR official was one of three postage stamps introduced by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in May 1840 for the pre-payment of postage. While the Penny Black and the Two Pence Blue were for use by the general public, as were the Mulready envelopes and letter sheets, the VR official was for use on official mail. In appearance the VR Official was the same as the issued Penny Black except that the Maltese crosses in the top corners were removed and replaced by the letters V and R, hence its common name.
The transfer roller was used in the production of the first postage stamps, the Penny Black, Two pence blue and the VR official. It transferred the image of the stamp from the master die to the printing plate.
The adhesive embossed postage stamps of the United Kingdom, issued during the reign of Queen Victoria between 1847 and 1854 exhibit four features which are unique to this issue:
The Penny Blue is frequently mistaken for a postage stamp of Britain. It is from a series of proof impressions which were made at the time Rowland Hill was looking at the new colours which were to be used for the stamps which were to replace the Penny Black and the original 1840 issue of the Two pence Blue.
The Two Penny Blue or The Two Pence Blue was the world's second official postage stamp, produced in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and issued after the Penny Black.
The Mauritius "Post Office" stamps were issued by the British Colony Mauritius in September 1847, in two denominations: an orange-red one penny (1d) and a deep blue two pence (2d). Their name comes from the wording on the stamps reading "Post Office", which was soon changed in the next issue to "Post Paid". They are among the rarest postage stamps in the world.
Plating refers to the reconstruction of a pane or "sheet" of postage stamps printed from a single plate by using individual stamps and overlapping strips and blocks of stamps. Likewise, if a sheet 10 or 20 postal cards is typeset, the variations of the letters or design elements may allow reconstruction or plating of the sheets based on these differences.
The Penny Venetian Red was a British postage stamp equal to the value of one penny. Issued in 1880, it was designed and surface-printed by security printing company De La Rue. It superseded the Penny Red, which had been used in Great Britain since 1841, and was the third one-penny stamp to enter regular usage in the country.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Barbados.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Cape of Good Hope.
St. Lucia a former British dependency in the Windward Islands began using stamps in 1860. It achieved Associated Statehood on 1 March 1967. In 1979, it gained independence.
The Three Halfpence Red, first issued on 1 October 1870, was the first Three Halfpenny postage stamp issued in the United Kingdom.
The Regular Issues of 1922–1931 were a series of 27 U.S. postage stamps issued for general everyday use by the U.S. Post Office. Unlike the definitives previously in use, which presented only a Washington or Franklin image, each of these definitive stamps depicted a different president or other subject, with Washington and Franklin each confined to a single denomination. The series not only restored the historical tradition of honoring multiple presidents on U.S. Postage but extended it. Offering the customary presidential portraits of the martyred Lincoln and Garfield, the war hero Grant, and the founding fathers Washington and Jefferson, the series also memorialized some of the more recently deceased presidents, beginning with Hayes, McKinley, Cleveland and Roosevelt. Later, the deaths of Harding, Wilson and Taft all prompted additions to the presidential roster of Regular Issue stamps, and Benjamin Harrison's demise (1901) was belatedly deemed recent enough to be acknowledged as well, even though it had already been recognized in the Series of 1902. The Regular Issues also included other notable Americans, such as Martha Washington and Nathan Hale—and, moreover, was the first definitive series since 1869 to offer iconic American pictorial images: these included the Statue of Liberty, the Capitol Building and others. The first time (1869) that images other than portraits of statesmen had been featured on U.S. postage, the general public disapproved, complaining that the scenes were no substitute for images of presidents and Franklin. However, with the release of these 1922 regular issues, the various scenes—which included the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial and even an engraving of an American Buffalo—prompted no objections. To be sure, this series presented pictorial images only on the higher-value stamps; the more commonly used denominations, of 12 cents and lower, still offered the traditional portraits.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of South Australia, a former British colony that is now part of Australia.
Epaulettes is the name given by philatelists to the first series of postage stamps issued by Belgium. The stamps, which depicted King Leopold I with prominent epaulettes from which the name derives, became legally usable on 1 July 1849. Two denominations with the same design were issued simultaneously: a brown 10 centimes and a blue 20 centimes. They were produced as the result of a series of national reforms to the postal system in Belgium, based on the success of similar British measures adopted in 1840. The stamps allowed postal costs to be pre-paid by the sender, rather than the receiver, and led to a sharp increase in the volume of mail. Although quickly superseded by new types, Epaulettes proved influential and have since inspired several series of commemorative stamps.
The Black Swan is the first postage stamp issued by the British colony of Western Australia in 1854. It illustrates a black swan, a typical Australian animal at the time and was the only image used on Western Australian stamps until 1902.